Google knows a lot about you, and a decent amount of that info comes from YouTube. By default, the video site tracks everything you watch and search for (including that time I played the same Taylor Swift video on a loop for 2 hours) so it can suggest better videos—and target you with more relevant ads, of course.

Where do you go to waste time on the internet? Facebook and Twitter, the usual default answers, are exhausting. Scrolling through them feels like work. “I don’t know how to waste time on the internet anymore,” says Dan Nosowitz in the internet-culture blog Select All. We agree with him that it’s way too easy to get…

About a year ago, we started binge watching a single show at a time at my house. We typically pick something with at least four or five seasons, and then whenever we’re looking to “watch something” the answer is always the next episode of that show. Yes, we stray from it to catch new episodes of other programs, but…

Chrome/Firefox: If you’ve used a web browser at any point in the past eight years, you’ve surely heard of the extension Turn Off the Lights (Chrome, Firefox). It’s the best way to automatically embiggen your YouTube videos when you start watching and, of course, dim your browser’s background for a prettier view (even…

Before Mari Takahashi joined entertainment company Smosh, her job was ballet dancing, and her career aspiration was to make a living teaching dance. Now she’s in charge of Smosh Games, a YouTube channel with over 7 million subscribers, where she regularly appears in videos like her Minecraft show MariCraft. She told…

If you like using an alternate site to watch YouTube videos (like the minimalist Tube, which we recently covered, or the more minimalist Surprise.ly, which we covered long ago, then you can set up a Chrome extension to redirect you every time you click on a YouTube link.

YouTube intentionally makes it easy for you to fall into a rabbit hole watching videos. Sure, you came to watch one cute puppy video, but 5 hours later you’re still clicking through them because man, puppies are cute and it would be a tragedy to miss out on the perfect video.

Sometimes, you just don’t feel like waiting for a video to stream. That, or a video is so compelling, you want to make an offline copy so you can pull it up (and show your friends) at a moment’s notice.

Android: If you’re tired of suffering through annoying YouTube ads, the company’s YouTube Red subscription is a solid option. Unfortunately, it’s only available in a small handful of countries. If you don’t have access to the service (or you don’t feel like paying $10 per month), there’s another ad-free YouTube player…

Broadway superstars Lin-Manuel Miranda and Ben Platt dropped a bomb for theater geeks early this morning, remixing two songs from their always-sold-out musicals into a lovely duet you can purchase or stream for free across a number of different online services, like YouTube.

The New Yorker ran a story yesterday about the emotional experience of listening to a tinny version of Toto’s “Africa” on YouTube. The popular video simulates the sound of hearing the pop song echoing through an empty shopping mall. The piece nails the song’s effect:

Staring at bright screens—especially at night—can be a pain in the butt and/or eyes. And it’s difficult to resist the temptation for “just one more video...” when you’re settling down for the evening. Thankfully, Google just updated the YouTube app for iOS to include the same kind of “Dark Mode” you’ll find on its…

Every time you watch a video, YouTube shows you a dozen more in the sidebar, most of them weirder and worse than what you’re watching. They’re obnoxious and distracting, they can lead kids to inappropriate videos, and according to a Wall Street Journal test, they tend to get more extreme the more you click. Here’s how…

iOS/Android: Spotify works great for music sharing and third-party plugins. Apple Music works great for offline play. So I juggle both. It feels a bit like shared custody, but it’s a lot easier thanks to the mobile apps SongShift and Stamp, which efficiently move playlists from one service to the other.